The present invention relates to an automatic logic design system for accomplishing the logic design of a digital hardware system by a computer.
Generally speaking, the design of a computer is conducted through the steps of architecture design, logic design, physical design and test. The physical design and later steps has been drastically automated by the development of DA (which is the abbreviation of "Design Automation" of recent years, as is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 60317/1983).
For the steps of the architecture design and the logic design, on the other hand, trials have been made to improve the design method and automation. However, the design workload for those steps has not been reduced. Especially, large-scale computers commonly take their design terms in years.
As the semiconductor technology advances in recent years, moreover, there appears the VLSI which has a great number of gates built therein. However, there is not established yet a logic design method of making effective use of that development of the semiconductor technology.